Rants are welcome, even encouraged :)
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The last 4 phones I had were just a mess. I am starting to loose hope of there being something that would work well. I just recently got a new phone, itâs a mess as usual. Maybe what I am experiencing is enough for a warranty claim, maybe itâs just a quirk to be dealt withâŚ
Every couple years every newer phone I try is just worse and worse. I thought that maybe once PinePhone and available software gets mature enoughâŚ, but at this point, maybe other phones will just get crap enough.
My last good phone was ironically an ultra-cheap Lark Cumulus 5HD. It was just 50 EUR new. No lags, no crashes, swappable battery, a just works experience. 50 bucksâŚ
ChronologicallyâŚ
Moto G5s Plus
Great hardware, except that focus on my camera was kind-of broken, but I was too lazy to get that repaired under warranty.
But SW, god damn Motorola. Slow buggy mess. Crashes, freezes, battery drain. BUT, I was able to fix it with â¨a custom ROMâ¨
Poco X3 Pro
If you had any MIUI device, you know. Alarm clock may get killed optimized, ton of bugs to learn working around, built-in ads and spyware. Lots of it, based on blocked DNS logs.
HW - cheap and powerful. Average lifespan of the motherboard being whopping⌠9 months. The phone ate 3 of them.
Moto G54 5G Power
Once again, great HW, SW not so much. The 3 button navigation was completely broken in high DPI and what made me return it - non-skippable updates. Just full-screen permanent update notifications. Only option: update. Nope.
Ulefone Armor 24
Few SW issues: Long-pressing dock icons while an app is open crashes âQuickstepâ, in turn killing navigation (both gesture and buttonsâŚ). Alarm clock gets killed most of the time even with all optimizations off.
HW, least I think I should classify it as such: The phone has a chance to negotiate (?) 12V for split-second intervals using QC 2.0 (based on my USB tester) which it doesnât expect, and throws overvoltage error. This happens with all QC-compatible chargers I tried, even the original one when used with OTG adapter.
The original one otherwise uses USB-C with PD, which works, sure. But after using it data transfer to PC via cable is broken until reboot.
I was very much a full-time phone person, but now itâs too much. I got a cheap touchscreen ThinkPad and use it with KDE Plasma (wayland). I was doing basically everything on a phone before, now I instead try not to, but with everything being an app, damn.
Fourth year with Samsung Z3 (the flip one) It is totally awesome, the only downside is that protective foil starts to come off every year or so right in the middle. Will upgrade to Z7 next year 100%
Pixel 8 pro.
Quirks : Runs GrapheneOS
LG V20. Itâs old as shit but it has tons of features that you canât get all on a new phone. IMO phone technology peaked on this one.
Just off the top of my head: Headphone jack, Replaceable battery, Small second screen you can put app shortcuts on, Hi-fi DAC, IR blaster, SD slot
HMD Vibe. I hate this phone. Bluetooth is terrible, cameras are all trash, it sometimes just doesnât ring when someone is calling, no NFC, no finger print. Face unlock is slower then just putting in my pattern.
I had the Nokia 8.3 5g just before it that I accidentally took swimming. It was the best phone Iâve ever had. No bloat, everything worked perfectly. I canât understand how they had that phone, then made this piece of trash.
ChronologicallyâŚ
TCL 10L. Decent phone, I liked it a lot, the software was kinda buggy but was overall pretty good⌠Kinda destroyed it in a gym accident.
Samsung Galaxy A12. Horrible phone, do not buy. Slow, sh!t software, crap battery life. Thank God for GSIs as they are the only things that made this phone bearable.
Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G. Best phone Iâve ever owned. The software sucks but itâs supported by most custom roms (I use lineage). Got it for a good price 2nd hand and itâs been my daily driver ever since.
